India-bound Mercedes-Benz CLA crosses One lakh sales mark globally

The 2013-launched CLA compact sedan from Mercedes-Benz has surpassed the 1 lakh sales mark. Altogether, the three-pointed star also touched the 8 lakh sales milestone for its next generation compact cars.

Talking over the achievement, Ola Kallenius, Member of the Divisional Board Mercedes-Benz Cars responsible for Marketing & Sales, said, “100,000 CLA and altogether 800,000 new compact models show very clearly that our model initiative in the compact segment is definitely hitting the mark. And Month after month, these models are the most important drivers of our growth worldwide.”

In September last year, Mercedes also introduced an AMG version of the CLA, christened as CLA 45 AMG. With an increment of about 20 percent over the past year, the AMG model proved out to be quite instrumental, and helped the company's performance brand significantly in pushing the sales in their key US market.

The CLA has been very-successful in the United States. More than a quarter of the total CLAs sold till date, have been sold in the country. Price point played the biggest driving force in the success of CLA, as its the first Mercedes-Benz model available in US for under 30,000 USD. Importantly, the average age of CLA drivers in the U.S. is 45, which is almost ten years younger than American Mercedes-Benz customers across the full range. The CLA’s conquest rate is also particularly high in the United States, as 8 out of 10 customers previously drove a competitor model. After US, CLA's most significant sales region is Western Europe, where it debuted in mid-2013, and enjoys a share of around 30 percent. The biggest single markets for CLA in Europe, are Germany and Great Britain.

Mercedes-Benz India launched the CLA 45 AMG quite recently, while the non-AMG standard model is scheduled to launch very soon.

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